Comparisons of peacebuilding with historic practices of imperialism are common, both in academia and in public debates. These comparisons, however, are sustained by a dichotomous frame: international peacebuilding is interpreted or argued to be either humanitarian or imperialist. This establishes the ground for judging the legitimacy of intervention—are the motivations behind the intervention ‘peaceful/humanitarian’ or ‘imperialist’? This framing is problematic and has significant effects, one of which is to caricature the relationships between ‘local’ and ‘international’ actors. This talk will analyze the case of Francophone Africa, and more specifically the peace interventions in Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, to provide a context that has been left unexplored in peacebuilding debates. It is argued that the imperial legacy of peacebuilding is inevitable and found in old capabilities, new organizing logics, and specific practices and power relations. The fact that only France could have intervened as it did in Côte d’Ivoire and Mali suggests the historical, political, and strategic specificity of peace operations in Francophone Africa.

Bruno Charbonneau is Associate Professor of Political Science at Laurentian University, Director of the Observatoire sur les missions de paix et opérations humanitaires at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He is author of France and the New Imperialism (Ashgate, 2008) and co-editor of Peace Operations in the Francophone World (Routledge, 2014), Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation (Routledge, 2012) and Locating Global Order (UBC Press, 2010).